Since buying the address for $34.5 million two years ago, Taconic has been restoring and expanding the 1923-built structure into a 60,000-square-foot address for high-end retail and offices.

Last spring, Taconic inked a deal with Apple to launch its third big Manhattan store there with 32,000 square feet.

Because the building falls within a historic district, Taconic needed approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission to add the penthouse to the original six stories. “They were concerned about sight- lines,” said Taconic co-founder Paul E. Pariser.

So the penthouse had to be set back from the façade – which proved to be a boon, Pariser said, because it generated space for two outdoor terraces totaling 2,500 square feet in addition to 9,100 square feet indoors.

He would not comment on what Tudor was paying, but said that for some 9,000 square feet of office/retail space on the second floor, Taconic was asking $100 a foot.

Greenwich-based Tudor has a larger presence at Taconic’s 450 Park Ave. The firm declined to say why it is adding space downtown.

But a source said, “Tudor has lots of clients in the creative fields who are put off by Midtown, and the new office will take care of that.”

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The final piece of Time Warner Center’s Restaurant Collection will arrive next month – Clo, a 75-seat wine bar on the galleria’s fourth level, just outside Per Se and Masa.

“I’m looking forward to it – it will bring energy to the floor, said chef Michael Lomonaco, who owns Porter House at the floor’s north end.

Related honcho Kenneth Himmel said Clo will be run by Andrew Bradbury, who made his mark as the master sommelier at Aureole in Las Vegas, famed for its 42-foot tall, glass-enclosed wine tower.

At Clo, customers can sample 100-odd vintages served in two-ounce pours and then buy them by the bottle from a small store to be installed near the elevators on the same floor. A light menu will offer wine-appropriate nibbles.

The design, Himmel said, will be “very modern and cool with a lot of glass.” It will serve as a sophisticated sipping spot, not a bar, so as not to compete with the Stone Rose Bar on the floor.

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Manhattan’s sexiest development site is the former Drake Hotel, now being demolished by Harry Macklowe.

But the mystery of what Macklowe is up to deepens by the week. The latest puzzle is the disappearance of a floor-stacking image posted on Macklowe Properties’ Web site that was recently replaced with a blank gray box labeled “office building under construction.”

The schematic showed an L-shaped project wrapping around 450 Park Ave. at the southwest corner of Park Avenue and 57th Street. The larger portion ran along 56th Street, and also included frontage on 57th Street, now home to a row of retail townhouses.

But Macklowe doesn’t own all the buildings he would need on 57th Street to have uninterrupted sidewalk frontage – such as 42 E. 57th St., home to Turnbull & Asser.

Nor have any tenants been signed for the new project. It’s unclear how Macklowe could undertake a large speculative office building in the midst of the credit crunch, which has him scrambling to cover $5 billion in short-term debt.

Reports recently surfaced that Nordstrom was in talks to open a store in the new tower. “A combination of Nordstrom and a user for some of the office space would get it built,” said Dan Fasulo of research firm Real Capital Analytics.

But a Nordstrom lease seems like a distant dream – the retailer has kicked tires all over town without making a deal.

“At the end of the day, if the market turns [down], Macklowe could turn it into residential or a hotel,” Fasulo said. Another possibility, of course, would be to sell it.

Macklowe’s representatives say he remains “fully committed” to the site, but he has avoided direct comment.

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Bucking a slowed market for investment sales, the owners of the adjacent buildings at 6 Water St. and 32 Pearl St. have put them on the market through Eastern Consolidated, hoping to fetch more than $45 million.